Former SBC President Johnny Hunt claims pastor’s wife stalked, seduced him
Former Southern Baptist Convention President Johnny Hunt, who previously admitted to engaging in "kissing and some awkward fondling" with the wife of a younger minister who accused him of sexual assault while on a beach vacation with his family in Panama City, Florida, in 2010, says he was stalked and seduced by the woman.
Hunt made the claim in a 368-page deposition on April 18 as part of a federal defamation lawsuit filed by his lawyers in Tennessee in March 2023 against the SBC, the SBC Executive Committee and Guidepost Solutions, which had previously investigated the allegations against Hunt. The SBC has asked the court to make a summary judgment on Hunt's lawsuit to avoid a trial.
Responding to questioning from SBC Executive Committee attorney Scarlett Singleton Nokes of the law firm Bradley Arant Boult Cummings, LLP in Nashville about his views on influential people attracting people who like power, Hunt said: "I would say that anyone that is greatly used in life, it seems like there's a target on them. I think some people would be drawn to a person of influence or feel like they have got their act together. I have often wondered if that's what — why [she] stalked me."
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"You said stalked you?" Stokes asked.
"Yes, ma'am," he replied.
When asked to define "stalk," Hunt said, "Moving into a condo next door to me seven hours from her house. And then pursuing — renting that place next to me and then pursuing me."
Hunt objects to being named in the May 22, 2022, report compiled by outside investigation firm Guidepost Solutions detailing the results of an investigation into allegations that SBC leaders intimidated whistleblowers and exonerated churches with credible claims of negligence of sexual abuse victims.
The wife of the younger pastor, who said she considered Hunt a mentor, told an investigator for Guidepost that while she was on a beach vacation with his family in Florida, Hunt sexually assaulted her and told her he wanted to have sex with her three times a day.
The woman and her husband, both 24 years younger than the 71-year-old Hunt, who served as SBC president from 2008 to 2010, told investigators that the alleged assault took place after the June 2010 SBC Annual Meeting in Orlando that year. She claims the advances were unwanted.
In a May 27, 2022, statement addressed to the church on his Instagram account, Hunt admitted that while he did have an encounter with the younger pastor's wife, the Guidepost Solutions report was "sensationalized" and included details that were not true. He followed up a year later in his defamation lawsuit, stating that his encounter with the pastor's wife only involved "kissing and some awkward fondling."
In his April 18 deposition, Hunt went even further in describing in his own words what happened with the pastor's wife during a discussion with Nokes about adultery, which he explained is only committed when there is sexual intercourse between two married individuals outside the boundaries of their marriage. Anything else, he said, is "fornication."
Hunt explained that even though in his defamation lawsuit he admitted to "kissing and awkward fondling," he never kissed the young pastor's wife on the lips during their encounter in her condo on July 10, 2010.
"My hand raised to God, my lips have never touched lips, ever," Hunt said.
"I did awkwardly fondle her because she was coming on to me. I have never been questioned before is the reason I'm so excited about being here today. I have never been — had an opportunity. And I will speak to all of the Guidepost report and how that came about. I have never been questioned," Hunt told Nokes.
He then proceeded to recount what happened on the day of the fateful encounter.
"I had spoke[n] that morning, preached that morning and was resting in my condo. I had no idea she was coming to my condo. No idea. I had received a text from [the husband], saying that he was going to probably send her down there, and if I saw her, look out for her," Hunt began.
"I guess what that meant to me, the only place I had ever seen her in my life was walking by the beach when my wife and I were there and them being together and speaking. So I thought that's what he meant until I received a text from her. And it was the pier out from my place. And my response was simple: 'Where are you?'" the former SBC president recalled.
"She said: 'Come to the balcony.' She had rented a room next to me, unknowing to me. She had just been there two weeks prior without her children and with her husband. Now she's without her husband or her children.
"She encourages me to come to her side of the balcony. She says she wants me to come there so I won't be in the sun. She's exposed to the exact same sun mine is. Mine's beside them. There's no trees. The sun is there. It would be the same temperature on her side as mine. And I continued to refuse," Hunt said, explaining that "She continued to seduce."
He claimed that it was under the influence of the seduction he experienced "temporary forgetfulness of God on my behalf."
"I take full responsibility — I went over and went to her balcony. She said she wanted to talk to me. She places her feet up on my knees. I said: 'What do you want? Me to rub your legs?' She said: 'It would be nice.' And then she said: 'I knew if I could get you to come over here, hopefully, you would ask to touch me because you are a perfect gentleman.'
"And that is fine. And then I said, 'I don't feel comfortable on the porch.' So we went inside. But as we went inside, I said, 'I really should leave.' She said, 'Please don't. Just be seated on the couch. Just sit here on the end of the couch.'
"And so she talked me into sitting on the end of the couch. She was sitting on the opposite end. But then she turned around and spread her legs toward me. And then said, 'Please come closer.' That's where she would say I pinned her in," Hunt explained.
"At her request, I came and sat beside her. And then she lowered her top. She made herself available, to let me know the reason she could not go jogging with me, which I never invited her to run with me, and when she requested the next day, I denied her," he continued.
"She said, 'I can't go running because I don't have a sports bra. And I have to have a sports bra to run.' And so when she did that is when I fondled her. And then I pulled her pants down with her help."
Hunt said as soon as he pulled down the pants of the young pastor's wife he experienced "deep conviction" and left her condo.
"I came under deep conviction, stood up and said, 'I love my wife, and I love your family. And I shouldn't be here. And I'm sorry.' And I left," he said.
"As I was leaving, she said, 'Please don't be this way. It's only the first day.' I was never given the privilege to tell that story to Guidepost," Hunt said.
"I'd never been alone with her before — it was not an affair; it was an encounter — and never after. And she continued to reach out through her husband over the years."
In June 2022, Hunt was suspended as pastor emeritus at First Baptist Church Woodstock in Georgia after the investigation deemed credible allegations that he sexually assaulted a younger pastor's wife. In November 2022, former SBC President Bart Barber rejected the claim made by four pastors that Hunt had been restored to ministry.
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